Bravo Two Zero The Real Story

eight SAS men dropped behind enemy lines during the Gulf War just a decade ago within days three of the soldiers were dead four were captured and one walked across the desert to freedom one of the great epic journeys of British military history Bravo two zero is the most famous military incident of recent history and a story known to millions through books written by two of the soldiers under their pseudonyms Andy McNab and Chris Ryan there were some real-life heroes contemporary British heroes their very names conjuring up images of gritty courage in the face of overwhelming odds they were just eight but after they returned the patrol commander Andy McNab said they killed or injured 250 Iraqis an extraordinary feat of military expertise but now it's just over ten years later and there's one final story still to tell the one left behind in the Iraqi desert just after 9 p.m. January the 22nd 1991 an RAF helicopter dropped eight SAS men over a hundred and eighty miles behind enemy lines their mission to locate Iraqi missile launchers Michael Asha is Britain's leading desert explorer and a former trooper in the SAS himself he's returned to Iraq to rerun the fateful patrol undertaken by Bravo to zero over the years he's crossed around 20,000 miles of desert and now he wants to find out what they went through I'm in the desert of Iraq in the very place where Bravo two zero was inserted by helicopter in this 22nd of January 1991 and it was for them the big mission of their lives I mean it was really the big one this was the thing they'd been training all their lives for you know they here they were on a major operation in a major war hundred and eighty odd miles behind enemy lines and this place looks pretty sinister to me but how much more hostile must it have seen to them in his book the patrol commander Andy McNab recounts how the RAF helicopter dropped them twenty kilometres from their destination each man carrying over 200 pounds of equipment Michael Asher sets off on the same route with the same crippling weight in water after a mild he's already in trouble it's really difficult to talk I mean it's such a strain it's painful I mean I'm getting slower and slower over the you know a distance of one kilometer almost slowed down to a standstill and that's about the limit of my strength for now it's like carrying a 15 stone man on your back the only thing for us I'm gonna have to empty out water I mean that's the only way I'm ever going to make there I need before he left for Iraq Michael went to the Brecon Beacons where the SAS trained to prepare for his trip he's always been talked in SS circles that the books contain exaggerations that some of the incidents never happened at all when Andy McNab and Chris Ryan came back from Iraq there was an official regimental debrief and there are glaring discrepancies between what they wrote in their books and what they said to their SS comrades in private the other surviving members of the patrol can't speak because they're bound by an MOT confidential agreement but the SAS regimental sergeant major at the time Peter Ratliff has deep reservations about McNabb and Ryan's claims was there any discrepancy between what they wrote in the books and what they actually said at the debriefings on the debriefing they made no mention of killing 250 or wounding 250 rocky soldiers but there are other casualties too before he left for Iraq Michael visits the family of Sergeant Vince Phillips one of the totals who died both all those but especially Chris Ryan blame Vince Phillips for much that went wrong since his father and both his brothers served in the Army for Vince to be portrayed as a twitchy incompetent who brought down the patrol has been humiliating for them it seemed all the blame was put onto him amongst other things you know about him being nervous and twitchy yeah I should think every man in that patrol was nervous and twitchy he was not twitchy he was a bloody good soldier Michael Ash's investigation starts in Baghdad where he plans his trip using the books and maps he's identified the key places to visit as he recreates the Bravo two zero mission to Iraqi government officials will travel with him but he's free to go wherever he likes and speak to whoever he chooses for the last 50 years when fighting in the desert the SAS has always used heavily armed Land Rovers nicknamed pinky's against the advice of their commanding officer Bravo two zero defied tradition and went on foot despite the enormous weight they had to carry it was a decision with terrible consequences I think if I hadn't followed in their footsteps of Bravo to zero I'd never have understood exactly you know the logic of their movements I'm doing it because I think they're only by you know traveling under the same conditions can you possibly get a glimpse of what it was like for those people January 1991 Iraq starts firing Scud missiles at Israel arvo to zeros mission locate the missile launches as they travel along this road so they can be destroyed watching and reporting back is a classic SAS task to do this they found a lying up place or Lu P close to the road here from where they can see but not be seen themselves having walked through the night Michael Asher now tries to find the lu p this seems to fit the ground exactly I mean both Ryan and McNab describe seeing a building some trees a water tower within about 1500 meters of the Lu Peter lying up place point zero three of a kilometer and this is really looking good now I'm sure this is it point-to-point Wow bingo this is it this is the point on there Miguel and look this is it this is the leop and it corresponds exactly to the description it couldn't be more perfect there's a sort of an overhang the cave big enough for quite a few people to hide in there's a rock in the middle and then there's another space on the other side this is Bravo two zeroes lying up place I've found it it's fantastic really this is where they were this is where you know this is a historical place is where they came I really feel fantastic now no that's great no it says here we moved all the equipment into the leop the cave was divided by a large rock so we centralized the equipment which I imagine would have meant they put it here behind the rock and there's a nice little cache area here underneath the rock so we centralized the equipment and have the two gangs on either side served by the two gangs he means the two half patrol vince's patrol was on this side of the rock and the NAG McNab's patrols on this side of the rock but the really exciting thing that this is without any shadow of a doubt this is Bravo two zeros Lu P and I'm standing in this very spot that Andy McNab and his team sat and where they spent their first night here right here Michael Ash's next move is to look for witnesses he wants to talk to any locals who may remember something about Bravo two zero the obvious place to start is the building that both McNabb and Ryan mentioned in their books this remote part of Iraq is mainly populated by Bedouins it's a culture Michael Asher knows well having spent three years living with a Bedouin tribe it soon becomes very clear to my clasher that this Bedouin family know a lot about Bravo two zero in Ryan's book he says things first started to go wrong when a local Shepherd boys spotted Vince Phillips in the leop Michael discovers that this family know this shepherd boy they said that there was a boy called Adil who was about 10 years old about the same age as this boy but he went down to the water but he didn't see them he said didn't see them at all no Ryan in his account makes out the Vince moved and the boy saw him and this is what compromised the patrol of course everything that went wrong with the patrol started from that point but according to Abbas here the boy didn't see them at all a bus takes Michael Asher to meet Adele the shepherd boy immortalized by both McNab and Ryan as the person who first spotted the SAS patrol and brought about their downfall he's now a young man in his early 20s and according to our boss he is the only boy in the area who looked after sheep Yanni al-walid le and chef father NASA Britannian faladi well Amash of them Martha wash with the owner come senator Senate by then into GT honorable Hunnam little yd Intel hostile McCann were lucky enough to her knack sorry I've got a mushroom to give me a wash yeah knocking home Phil coup d'etat home you Gullu into shifter homie oh well I mean I think one thing this is brought out is that the Vince is totally vindicated you know I mean you know clearly nobody's reported seeing any strangers in the wadi I think what was really responsible for the compromise was the fact they would drop so near to this house the house where these people live the other interesting thing about the Bedouins account is that they claimed to have heard the helicopter land they then take Michael Asha to the spot just a short distance from their house what they said was that the helicopter landed just down here so that must be about ooh 300 meters away and if what they say is true then obviously mcnabbs claimed that the drop-off point was 20 kilometres to the south is rubbish you know they they landed here in the helicopter and they carried their all their gear heavy though it was only two kilometres to the leop the patrols first firefight with the Iraqis began with the arrival of a bulldozer in the wadi where they were hiding michael has founded it belongs to Abbas this is incredible is really the bulldoze of it since that might Navin Ryan both describing their books Abbas says he went to put the bulldozer in the wadi to park it out of the wind as he did not want the fuel in to freeze any integers i had do you know i did we after he saw the first man behind that rock over there just saw his eyes and then he ducked down again and then when he was going back he saw another one up there and again just saw his eyes you know so he saw two people and he said at this stage he didn't know who they were unsure of quite who he'd seen abbas says he did not contact the iraqi authorities instead he told his father and brother they will return to the wadi this time armed with two Kalashnikovs in an antique bolt-action rifle McNab and Ryan both described their first contact with the enemy as a bloody and dramatic firefight McNab says they were attacked by armored personnel carriers they charged their weapons blazing they threw grenades and left the battlefield strewn with dozens of Iraqi soldiers dead and wounded Abbas and his brother higher the patrol passing under that Ridge over there with this sort of nipple on top okay at that point these two guys and their father fired two shots over their heads immediately the patrol scattered they went to ground I started crawling into position and they returned fire and the bullets hit this ridge behind us here both the SS Patrol and the Arabs were firing at each other the SAS fired a smoke grenade and created a big pall of smoke and under the cover of the smoke the SS Patrol made off over the ridge right in front of us okay what McNab wrote was from this point here they actually charged but not it wasn't three men that they charged but this horde of enemies with armored personnel carriers that were coming towards them across this ground you know and they did this kind of charge of the Light Brigade firing their 203 grenades you know they destroyed one of the APCs they threw a grenade into the back of another one it exploded McNab gives the impression there were hundreds of bodies writhing all over the place it was absolute carnage you know but this is a very very different tale getting here you know something much much more simple much much more prosaic three ordinary guys who lived in that house there that you can even see from here just local people this is their back garden you know and there they were that's you know if what they're saying is true that was the only enemy they were up against and this is pretty sobering after saying well I I just can't believe it I'm reluctant to I admit it at the moment you know I'd have to be I take more a bit more convincing than these what I want to know is this you know I mean we're told in their books that they drop their Bergin's at this point I want to know if these guys found the Bergin's and where they were and I'm going to ask them about that now an inter battalion legee torogai Bataan magadhan looking for any be doctor when we get to yeah they say that this is the point in which they found the first Bergin so in fact the bergen's they found in two groups one group of three one group of five verses are on the other side of the hill but this was where they found the first lot of bergen and they described very very well how they fought this tactical withdrawal one man at a time being covered by you know somebody else and I can't see how they could God have got that from anyone else I mean it was absolutely right you know but that's exactly how the SAS would withdraw Michael is now in a quandary was there a pitched battle with dozens of dead or was this just a minor skirmish he needs to know what proof the Bedouins of God back at the house the locals produce some of the stuff the SAS left behind same with this one this is a standard British Army jerrican and this is a British Army shovel this is not the original handle of course they put this on and this is the lid of a claymore mine and we know from the book that they actually did leave to live minds at the leop and these are not used by the Iraqi army at all but they are standard issue for the SAS well we've got hard evidence obviously you know they were here there can't be any doubt whatsoever about that and that these people you know had some contact with them now convinced Michael choose over some of the details with Abbas I know one tradition of the bear do is that when somebody shoots in in the sky over their heads what they would do is wave their sham acts you know and Abbas says that's true that's what the the usual response would be amongst the bear do and I think it's a great way irony that if they'd had somebody amongst the SAS who'd spoken even a little bit of Arabic and had understood the Bedouin traditions and this thing needn't have happened at all you know that if they shouted out we're friends you know we're you know stop shooting these guys would have probably just let them go Bravo two zero were very unlucky I spent many hours talking to our bus and eventually I discovered that he'd actually been a sergeant major in the Iraqi equivalent of the SAS he'd served throughout the eight years of the iran-iraq conflict in the front line which was real and to hand fighting and amazingly that meant that he had more combat experience than the entire strength of Bravo two zero put together Michael Masha is intrigued to know what Abbas thinks of the British soldiers and he says that they were really brave man they did they'd really did their duty in there but he said whoever sent them here it was lacking in brain power because it was really ridiculous to send people to a place like this where you couldn't survive you know that they knew nothing about it was a job which was going to be doomed for them as far as Abbas was concerned the SAS men were heroes sent on an impossible mission as Michael Asha follows the route taken by the escaping men there was another mystery to resolve when an SAS patrol is deployed there is an escape-and-evasion plan if things go wrong which should be agreed by everyone beforehand according to Ryan the official plan for Bravo two zero was to go south back to Saudi Arabia an escape route used successfully by other SAS patrols but Ryan also says that even before they left the Patrol had discussed going west unfortunately they had failed to make this clear as patrol leader McNab was ultimately responsible for this decision this was the most important decision Andy McNab would ever have to face and he decided to head for the Syrian border what made this decision so extraordinary was the fact that their radios had not worked since the patrol had been dropped by helicopter the night before back at base no one knew of the change of plan so while the patrol was going north and west the helicopters were looking for them in the south Bravo two zero were now well and truly on their own and what was worse the dangers of the desert had been underestimated for although it was desert it was winter already by the second evening the tough environment is taking its toll on Michael Asher just as it did for Bravo two zero just over 10 years ago see what occurs to me as I walk along is that this is much less a military story than a story of the power of the landscape and I think Bravo 2 0 themselves you know as that night went on must have realized that the the desert itself was at least as much an enemy as the Iraqis who were chasing them the SAS prides itself on its meticulous planning but brother to zero set off into one of the coldest places on earth without any proper cold-weather clothing at all and not surprisingly they soon began to freeze and as they did so they got confused in the darkness the patrol split up number two parts never found each other again Michael prepares to spend the night alone now following the route taken by McNab and his four companions dinga Coburn Francie Leo and legs lane they built some kind of wind shelter against the the bitter wind they had no sleeping bags they had no tent they were wearing SAS smokes like this one date in 1942 so they had nothing special to sort of keep the the wind off and there was a massive windchill factor here you know it was probably minus 10 minus 20 degrees centigrade and of course there were five of them they cuddled together deliberately to share their body warmth Bravo two zero went to Iraq in the winter Michael in the spring but it was still bitterly cold at night I really am beginning to feel quite cold and you know although it's absolutely nothing like Bravo Jazeera must have felt at least it does give me you know a slight it's like Tim indication of what it must have been like for them I'm a stood no chance from the beginning no chance whatsoever the early morning Sun brings relief from Michael Asher but back in the January winter of 1991 Bravo two zero had no such luck it's freezing coal and by now they're exhausted and soaked through it was raining snowing they must have been in a pretty battered in the ejected State the SAS tradition is always to avoid roads and tracks but McNabb ignored standard operating procedures he and the four others hijacked a taxi and set off for the border Abbas the Bedouin who first spotted the Patrol has agreed to act as my clashes guide and they're now travelling together towards the Syrian border in the very taxi hijacked by the SAS Abbas and I struck up quite a close friendship I lived with the Bedouin I really liked the Bedouin I understand their ways to some extent and you know we really stuck up affray also he's a very very nice guy very genuine guy and as he said to me amongst the Bedouin it's really considered a a disgrace to lie so this is the place where McNall buddies patrol claimed to have killed three people this was the end of the taxi ride for them and while it was the last part of their journey which ended in the capture of three of them and the death of two Michael Asha and Abbas are on their way to meet another witness a policeman who was told Abbas that he was at the vehicle checkpoint that very night in McNab's book he tells how to Patrol shot dead three Iraqis at this checkpoint well this is great and Abbas is saying that this soldier his name is Ahmed was here ten years ago and the braava tubers brought Robert to 0 patrolling here and he knows everything about what happened that night and he's prepared to tell me about McNutt says that the car stopped in a queue of cars and they could see a guard with a rifle over his shoulder coming towards them and this is what he wrote he did one tap on the window I put my head right back in in the same motion pushed my legs out and press my body against the seat the squaddies face was pressed expectantly against the window legs lifted the barrel one round was all it took there was an explosion of shattered glass and the car doors flew open we were out and running before the body had even hit the ground that's the way he might have described it and he describes how once they were out of the car they shot two other squaddies boom boom all right and then ran off into the desert yeah and I'm now going to translate that to my to affirm it and see what his reaction is back made any original a little Kitab gone why had mineral comes video Michael Ash's lengthy translation of Andy McNab's brutal prose from a Curt response he said is absolutely a hundred percent he said a million percent certain that not one Iraqi policemen was hurt or killed okay not one he's absolutely said not even a scratch Ahmed tells Michael that the British soldiers were spotted by this bridge it was dusk he went to fetch reinforcements 25 armed police returned and went straight into a gun battle with the SAS men it was quite a severe firefight a lot of bullets going off and it lasted he reckons about 10 minutes and they closed in on the dislocation in a sort of pincer movement when they arrived there they found there was nobody there at all they'd gone it somehow slipped through the neck there is one thing Achmed and Andy McNab would agree on this was the end of the line for the SAS man in the darkness there were more gunshots now just a few miles from the Syrian border and safety Bravo two zero were running for their lives and on their heels were the police and some locals who joined them the first to die was Bob Concilio here in this field but this is mr. soapy and he would he was actually present here the day bob Concilio was killed and he was actually one of seven people who are over there in this building and in the trees and he was actually present at the time he was killed but what happened was they shouted out to him he answered in kind of a weak voice like somebody who was really suffering from the cold or was in paying something like this you know they weren't sure of what he was going to do so they opened fire on him and they reckon he was injured in the mouth here as he came down this this track here and when he got to about here he is hit by a bullet which somehow exploded or set light to a phosphorus grenade that was in his chest pocket probably Bob concealed EOS death was quickly followed by the capture here of mark Coburn he was already wounded Ahmed telling me he was actually in the stitch with his police unit when Mark Coburn came across this tomato field and he was actually crawling can as a half-game I love what kind shows wound Agia or below you know he was crawling on his belly across the tomato field and he wasn't carrying a rival he's carrying a bay in it in his hand there were six or seven of them and they opened fire on him they shot him and he went down he screamed out something in English but they didn't know what it was and they went towards him out of the ditch the family was really shivering from the cold you know he's really cold and the blood was pouring out of his leg but he was still conscious and I've made himself picked coburn up and carried him into boowa had a gurney in another another guy carried the body you know still alive of course across the field put him in the back of a Land Cruiser Ahmed brought him a blanket covered him over cause he was really obviously very effective from the cold and he said thank you in English to our mate he said that from here they took him to the hospital and the doctor said he needed blood he'd lost a lot of blood and I've made himself volunteered to give him blood and he had a blood test that value was the wrong group but one of the police officers with Ahmed actually gave him blood and of course saved his life meanwhile two other members of the patrol dinga and legs lane had made it to the banks of the Euphrates River in the freezing darkness they made the fateful decision to swim Michael crosses the river to a small inhabited island where legs Lena and Inga took refuge in this pump house but by the morning legs lane had advanced hypothermia was dying there's an old man here who found them one of the guys have found them no shared what he's saying the first one they found in the pump house over they was really badly affected by the cold he's so bad that he couldn't talk he could have moved and they carried him to put him on a tractor they took him across the water to the shore and then put him in a car and took him off to the hospital and maybe we don't know maybe he died on the way to the hospital or or in the hospital itself anyway they're very sure he was still alive when he left their custody Michael Asher goes on to ask about the capture of dingo in his book McNab describes a brutal beating and claims that one man tried to cut off his ear he said nobody had any reason to hit him he said he didn't put up a fight he just surrendered they just searched him the found grenades on him they took them away and they took him off to the police headquarters just walking normally they said you know he didn't put up any fight they had no reason to beat it it was pretty futile to swim across the river if you think of it I mean all they did was came to a an inhabited Island which the next morning was going to be crawling with farmers I mean they just had no child what we're going to do shoot everybody I mean it was pretty what my stay again you know waste of a line by now two men were dead and two had been captured that just left patrol leader Andy McNab on his own hiding in a culvert here in this field McNab says he was spotted by an old goat herder and Michael has found the very man who's lived here all his life McNab says his capture was brutal but this Shepherd has a very different story to tell he says they gave him the team he said he's absolutely certain a hundred percent that nobody punched him nobody kicked him nobody treated him badly at all he said all that happened was his hands were tied behind his back he was made to kneel down like this okay and he said I asked him well how was it possible for them for him to drink tea and he told me that they they poured the tea into his mouth you know and he said first he he tried to back away thought it was poison to something but somebody tasted the tea for him and eventually he sort of relaxed and drank it Michael does not doubt that McNab was physically beaten once in jail but as he prepares to follow in the footsteps of the three remaining Patrol he finds that what admiration he had for McNab as now evaporated well I think we like heroes I think we need heroes in this country but I don't think that our search for heroes should obscure the truth to me knowing the truth is much more important than creating some myth part of our need to hero worship after the split Ryan describes how he Stan and Vince spent a desperate day huddled together in a small dugout as night approached they set off north all were crippled by the freezing cold but remembering the promise he made to the family back in Britain my Kalasha still wants to try to piece together what then happened to Vince finis accompanied by a bass Michael Asher has tracked down this man Muhammad who takes him to the spot where the three SAS men spent their first day after the split it used to be a hole in the ground but now has been covered up he says he knows this is the place they spent the day because he found their foot marks the tracks were very distinctive and they couldn't have been made by any Arab or anybody living living in this area I mean they really stood out you know there were quite distinct Muhammad also tells Michael that he was the man who found Vince Phillips body Michael checks out his story by showing him some pictures to see if he can pick him out this three of the patrol here so I'll see which one he picks out any monkey Audrina yeah Muhammad oh I had been howler Rogell until I get in here well he pointed out the picture of Phillips and he said he's absolutely 100% certain that this is the man he found here he came over to him and he found the body was just lying on the ground not too curled up in a fetal position who at wedge Hill for cooler would you attack and walk well his face was a uppermost and he had belts across his body he was wearing a camouflage jacket he said he was a very tall man quite a good-looking man he had a mustache curling down beside his mouth and he was wearing a goodra or shemagh like this one but but taut but longer with the ends tied across his body and around his back and he found he searched the body he found in it a wallet with 70 dollars in it and there was also a photograph of his wife and two children like freaking ice climber he says that he does have a pair of binoculars that he found in the pocket a very small binoculars and he took those home with him he has them at home and he's go meet them an integral of the given an acrylic table you didn't our other mal Phillips rather novel my ability these are the actual binoculars he found in Vince Phillips his pocket his own binoculars but now so this gives me a sort of direct feeling of connection you know with Vince Phillips by the time Vince collapsed all three SAS men were in very poor condition suffering from exposure and hypothermia Ryan himself says his memory of what happened is hazy and his mind was clouded but they lost Vince late that evening they looked for him couldn't find him so they left him behind it was a terrible decision but there was no alter Hammett is able to confirm only some of Ryan's account according to Muhammad there were no tracks coming back towards the body and he actually followed the tracks with five other people as far as the railway line 15 kilometres from here and he followed the tracks at least 15 kilometres to the railway line and he's absolutely certain there were no tracks coming back in the appalling conditions Ryan and Stan had probably become disorientated and failed to find their way back to Vince Michael Asher presses on along the route taken by Ryan and Stan Ryan writes that he and Stan became separated when Stan went off with an apparently friendly Shepherd to find food and transport he never returned Ryan of course didn't witness Stan's captured with this man al Haj Abdullah says he saw them what happened was they arrived here about 15 policemen and soldiers arrived here when the man saw them he ran off and hid behind some stones over here they surrounded him they moved in on him he just gave himself up he handed his his rifle over to the policeman he didn't say anything he didn't try to shoot anybody he didn't make any trouble at all according to Ryan when Stan before Stan was captured he actually shocked three people whom he says were running out of this house three policemen or Jun DS and I'm going to ask the now whether that's true uni sahi how the radial cut total at him in addition I'm a guy that's like hey you know and he said it's completely untrue it's not true at all anyway they took him off there was no trouble he didn't put up any kind of a fight but NAB claims that in the course of the events of robber to zero the patrol killed 250 people well I've covered almost all of that ground I mean I haven't quite finished Ryan's journey but I've covered a lot of that ground and I haven't discovered a single person that they killed and as far as I'm concerned up to now you know far from being 250 the body count the Bravo to 0 was 0 the real problem with exaggerating or gilding the lily or whatever you want to call it is that when you're writing about war it has consequences dangerous consequences creates unrealistic expectations what real soldiers fighting real wars are actually capable of Chris Ryan walked for 200 kilometers over seven nights until he crossed the border with Syria and Michael Asher is still doggedly in his footsteps one thing left is Ryan's journey which I think was a magnificent feat although in view of the fact that he exaggerated so much in his book my desire to do the journey to follow in his footsteps is really diminished Michael Asher reaches the Revue freight ease Chris Ryan had another four days walking ahead of him but Michael Asher decides he's had enough of following in the footsteps of Bravo two zero I don't really feel the need to do this heroic journey anymore simply because I don't think it really was heroic I think it's really despicable that McNab and Ryan are hiding behind pseudonyms saying that their real names are a security threat when they've gone against the regimental tradition a name the three dead men and after all their families are equally vulnerable I always thought that Ryan was wrong to name Vince which is not in the tradition of the regiment at the same time you know sort of hiding himself behind the pseudonym I think it's sort of like Batman and Robin you know I want to you know give themself secret identities it just adds to the mystique there's one last job to do I've got something very special here it's kind of guineas and this was Vince Phillips favorite drink I brought this all the way from England to bury in this spot I'm going to bury it in memory of Vince Phillips sergeant Vince Phillips at the 22nd Special Air Service regiment who died on this spot and you know I hope his memory will always be honored you know I think he was really you know an acid to to the regiment and I'm going to bury it in the ground and then we're going to build a can of stones over it okay we can we saw your lair Nigeria while some other members of the patrol were given medals Vince Phillips was not a decision which has offended many I think you ought to got a medal myself if I was giving out the medals I'd have given one to Vince Phillips I think he was just as much deserving of a medal as any other member of the Patrol after all he gave His life and what more can you give we want to forget that the Iraqi people are human beings people like ours people who love their children you know people are just ordinary like we are you know and turn them into these sort of you know robots who can be knocked down you know as if it's a game you know 250 people just like that well you know they didn't kill 250 people back in England Michael fulfills his promise to the Phillips family he tells them what he's discovered and returns his binoculars yeah I think that people serving in the SS regiment now and those who've served in it in the past are going to be quite disturbed by what I've discovered on my trip so Peter Ratcliffe was the SAS regimental sergeant major at the time of the Gulf War he debriefed the Bravo two zero survivors when they got back he's very critical of McNabb and Ryan as he found large gaps between what they said at the debrief and what they then claimed in their books the sad thing is about Ryan is that his so his story is fantastic in its own right and to have embellished like that actually a little sour taste yeah in lots of people's mouths so I mean would you say that other members of the regiment feel where you feel about Ryan's book or mcnabbs book and the claims they've made I think the guys most guys feel that these claims are just absolutely ridiculous

Channel: PressyTCN

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Id: mPe-c_3eAIg

Length: 48min 12sec (2892 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 13 2013